Buck Man

The audio post done yesterday was called "Buck Man Knows". "Buck man" was the
pejorative term used to describe the Amerindians of Guyana...my father's people...
when I lived in Guyana.
My hope is that since that era this term has been consigned to the place where
racist relics go...as people become more enlightened...but until I receive evidence that that has happened...I wouldn't bet that this term has vanished from the Guyana
vocabulary...along with other negative descriptions of members of all six ethnic
groups who live there. I remember in the school yard...if you were playing badly in one of the ad hoc cricket sessions that took place often... someone...likely...would shout at you..."Eh eh man...you lookin' buck sick!" i.e. bad play being equated with being Amerindian. Years after I had left Guyana...on a return trip there...I was leafing through a Geography text book used by a nephew of mine...in it I came upon a passage saying that....the Amerindians never made good slaves because they kept running away to the forest!. The man who wrote the text book was from one of the "dark" races of Guyana...and yet...in keeping with ancient prejudices in that country...he couldn't see that "going back to the forest"...was actually "going home" for the aboriginal people there...and was passing on a prejudice...inside the "final source" that a text book is supposed to be for children. For these reasons...and many more that have accrued over the last five hundred years I wrote the poem..."Buck Man Knows" ...and live in the hope that it won't take another five hundred years...for the true value of the original inhabitants of the Americas to be appreciated.........
......................Quester.